


White Blood

by AnonymousSpacePrince



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (The three focus characters are eighteen), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, And hypothetical self harm, And hypothetical suicide, Angst, Dean's only alive in the first paragraph, Death, Emotional Hurt, I only tag characters that fit into the main piece of plot, I'm warning you now that this is sad and doesn't stop being sad, Lots of other characters are mentioned but not really prominent, M/M, Sorry these tags are all over the place, There are some little mentions of non-anorexic self-starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 22:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7776139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousSpacePrince/pseuds/AnonymousSpacePrince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is robbed at gunpoint and shot, and in the aftermath, Charlie learns why Castiel doesn't seem to be recovering from his death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Blood

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this like a week ago and haven't gone over it as much as I'd like to, but a lot of things have made me sad today and I don't really care if it isn't perfect, I'm posting this now.
> 
> Title is taken from a song by the same name by Oh Wonder. In my opinion, it's an excellent song to listen to while reading this.

    It's a warm August night when a man pulls a gun on Dean Winchester. The air is damp with humidity when the man demands Dean's money, and the moonlight is shining down on him when Dean says he doesn't have his wallet on him. He's on his way home from his best friend, Castiel's, house, and he's only walking because his dad has the car. It had been raining all weekend, and the sidewalk is glistening when the man cocks the gun. Dean begs him, swears he doesn't have anything to give the man. Dean's phone goes off, it's Castiel texting to ask if he got home okay, and the man pulls the trigger.  
  
    It's a warm, damp August night when the bullet goes through Dean's brain, and his blood glistens under the moonlight when he hits the pavement. The man didn't mean to pull the trigger, he was surprised by Dean's phone and it was an automatic response.  
  
    It's 11:24 on a Saturday when a 911 operator gets a frantic call about a shooting. The paramedics rush to the scene, but Dean was already dead the moment the trigger was pulled. The man who shot him is long gone from the scene, and the police officers that arrived just after the ambulance only search for twenty minutes before deciding it's hopeless. Dean's pronounced dead on the scene, at 11:32 pm. They load him into the ambulance and take him directly to the morgue. They call Dean's father, John, and give him the news. His eyes are bloodshot and ringed in red when he comes in to identify the body.  
  
  
    Dean's funeral is held the following Monday, two days after he was shot. John, Dean's mother, Mary, and his younger brother, Sam, sit in the front pew of the church. They're all crying, have been all day, and their faces are blotchy and their cheeks are rose-coloured and puffy. Beside them sits John's best friend, Bobby, who was like an uncle to Dean. He's stoic, doesn't make a sound or move a muscle, but tears slip from his eyes steadily. Beside Bobby are Ash, Ellen, and Ellen's daughter, Jo; they're close family friends.  
  
    In the row behind them, Dean's best friends, Castiel and Charlie, are sitting. Charlie was like the sister Dean never had, and Cas, well, he was pretty much everything to Dean. They'd been best friends for years and they meant the world to each other. Castiel and Charlie are leaning against each other and sobbing uncontrollably. Charlie hasn't cried this hard since her girlfriend cheated on her, and Castiel hasn't ever cried this hard. Some of Dean's good-but-not-great-friends, including an English guy named Crowley and a girl named Meg who drips sarcasm with every word she says, sit in the same pew as Charlie and Castiel and fill up the one behind them. The rest of the church is filled with other people from Dean's life, grandparents and friends and family friends.  
  
    The pastor gives a lovely sermon, and then Dean's family take their turns standing in front of everyone and speaking about Dean. They share memories, talk about how much they love him and how great of a person he was. Castiel and Charlie give speeches that they barely make it through. Bobby has to stop halfway through his speech to choke back a sob, and Ellen speaks for herself and her daughter because Jo just can't bring herself to recount memories she shared with Dean now that he's gone.  
  
  
    Two months later, everyone is starting to piece themselves back together. Mary still cries when she lets herself think about Dean too much, and John drinks a little more and a little more often than he used to, but they're working back into normal life. Sam still zones out in class and sneaks into Dean's room some nights to go through his old stuff, but his grades have started coming back up. Bobby goes out with John sometimes to drink, and catches himself with tears in his eyes if they end up talking about Dean, but that's not all they talk about anymore. Charlie has started going out again, and hasn't started crying in the middle of a date because something reminded her of Dean in a month. She hangs out with Crowley and Meg on occasion, but they don't talk about him.  
  
    Charlie mostly sticks around with Cas though. Dean used to be the glue that held them together. They wouldn't have been friends if it weren't for him, but now that he's gone, they've stuck together. They spent most of their time early on talking about him until they started crying too hard to get the words out, but now they talk about other stuff a lot, and keep it together better when they do talk about him.  
  
    Charlie keeps a close eye on Cas, because he's the only one who isn't moving on from Dean's death. If he and Charlie aren't talking about Dean, Castiel doesn't contribute much to the conversation. He barely eats enough to keep himself alive, once every couple of days. He's lost somewhere between twenty and thirty pounds, so his clothes hang off of him and his bones protrude more than they used to. Charlie can tell he doesn't sleep much, because he always has dark bags under his eyes, and it usually looks like he stayed up all night crying. Charlie doesn't let Cas wear his tan trenchcoat unless they go outside, because she's afraid he'll hurt himself and hide it from her. Castiel's parents don't seem to care much, so Charlie feels responsible for taking care of him.  
  
    It's been two months, and she doesn't expect him to be okay, but she expects him to be better. If anything, he's gotten worse. Charlie doesn't know what to do, so she gets Cas to eat as much as she can, and she stays over some nights to make sure he sleeps. She coaxes him outside sometimes so he can get some sun and contact with the outside world, but since they all graduated last year, Cas rarely leaves his house.  
  
    It's October, and people have started to put out Halloween decorations. One night, Charlie convinces Cas to walk around the neighbourhood and look at the displays with her. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat and watches his feet until Charlie points something out, then goes back to looking at his feet. She points out an animatronic bat "flying" in circles below a tree branch, which Cas would ordinarily love, and he just looks at it and shrugs.  
  
    Charlie wraps a hand gently around Castiel's bicep and internally winces at how skinny it feels. "Cas, honey, what's going on?" She asks quietly.  
  
    "What do you mean?" He responds, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the pavement.  
  
    "You love Halloween. You used to love when we walked around looking at the decorations, but you don't seem to care now."  
  
    "I don't love anything anymore," Cas mutters.  
  
    "I'm gonna pretend that didn't hurt," Charlie gently teases.  
  
    Cas looks right at her, and his stare feels piercing. "Of course I love you, and I love my parents, and... whatever else I'm supposed to love, I guess. But I don't love this, not anymore. It's not the same without Dean, and you know that. It's never going to be the same."  
  
    "I miss him too, Cas, you know I do, but what happened, happened, and nothing can undo that. You're right, it's not the same, but it doesn't have to be. We can still enjoy this, have fun looking at all the lights and decorations, you know?"  
  
    "Maybe you can, but I can't."  
  
    "Why not?"  
  
    "The world might as well be black and white now, because I don't notice the colours anymore."  
  
    Charlie doesn't know what to say to that. She lets go of Castiel's arm.  
  
    "He was my best friend, Charlie."  
  
    "He was my best friend too, but I'm learning to get past it and you need to do the same, for your own good."  
  
    "I _can't_!" Cas whispers the word, but it rings in Charlie's ears like he shouted it. "I keep praying for it to be a dream, an awful nightmare. I keep waiting to wake up in my bed and be able to call him and hear his voice. Sometimes I dream that it _was_ a dream, and then I wake up and I... wish I didn't."  
  
    Charlie swallows a lump in her throat. "Cas..."  
  
    "Sometimes I wonder if I can even live in a world without him. I wonder if I'd be better off if I, uh, stopped trying to find out if I can."  
  
    "No, Cas, no," Charlie whispers, suddenly terrified. She grabs Cas' hands, and she can't tell if it's his that are shaking or her own. "Cas, you can't do that. I can't lose you too."  
  
    "I haven't done it, I doubt I will, but I've thought about it. I've thought about it a lot," Cas admits. "I know he meant a lot to you too, but you don't know what it's like. It's so much harder for me."  
  
    "Why?"  
  
    "Because I loved him."  
  
    "I loved him too, Cas. So did his mom, his dad, Sam-"  
  
    Cas yanks his hands away from Charlie's and shoves them back into his pockets. He revises his explanation. "Because I was in love with him, Charlie."  
  
    Her eyes widen as the dots finally connect. "Oh. Oh..."  
  
    "And I will never, _ever_ get a chance to tell him that. I will never be able to tell him that his smile always made me smile, that all he had to do was send me a text to make my day." Cas has been steady and soft the entire time he's been talking, and now suddenly he's crying, shaking, and his voice is unsteady. "I can never tell him that he meant the goddamn world to me and I would've done anything for him. I would've killed or died for him. I can never tell him that all those nights when my parents got wasted and laid into me, when he would come over and get me and take me to his house for the night, he saved my fucking life."  
  
    "Jesus, Cas," Charlie says, almost inaudibly.  
  
    "I never told him how much he meant to me, and now I'll never be able to. I know it's hard for you, and I know it's incredibly hard for his family, but _none of you_ know what that feels like."  
  
    "Cas, I'm so sorry."  
  
    "I almost told him that night," Cas whispers, and he sounds so shaky that Charlie just wants to hug him, but she doesn't, because she can't move. "The night that he... the night it happened. I almost told him everything, but I couldn't work up the nerve. I was too terrified that it'd ruin our friendship and," the next three words sound like they come directly out of Castiel's lungs without picking up the sound waves that are supposed to accompany them, "I'd lose him."  
  
    "Oh god," Charlie says, and then she does hug him. She pulls Cas in and holds him tightly, and she realises that they're both shaking. Cas wraps his arms around Charlie's back and cries into her shoulder, and she's crying too.  
  
    When he finally pulls away, Cas stares at the pavement between them. His voice is quiet when he speaks, and Charlie watches his tears hit the pavement as he does. "I was so caught up in my own bullshit that I didn't invite him to stay the night. I always do, and he always acc- I always _did_ and he always accepted the invitation. If I had just fucking remembered to invite him to stay over, Dean would be here with us right now." Castiel's voice gets even quieter then. "I'll never be able to tell him how much I loved him, and I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself for over-thinking it so much."

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome and appreciated. I hope this didn't break your heart too much.
> 
> I'm working on a much happier piece, but it's going to be longer than my previous works so it'll be a little while before it comes up. I might post one or two shorter pieces between now and then, so you can look forward to all of that.


End file.
